Pacific Sniper

Guam was now back in American hands, and the Chamorro people had always loved Americans. In a sense, the Americans may have been yet another colonial occupier, but they had been warm and generous toward the islanders, working with them rather than against them. What had the Japanese done? The Japanese had put the Chamorro people into forced labor camps and starved them. Lieutenant Steele called it a concentration camp.

“Just like the Nazis are doing to the Jews,” he said in disgust.

Deke had heard those rumors about what was happening in Europe, but he now had more immediate concerns.

“Take it, take it,” Deke said, giving away his chocolate bars to the hungry children. It was not nearly enough. To his astonishment, the children who had been lucky enough to get the chocolate did not wolf it down but calmly snapped off pieces to share with friends—and brothers and sisters. Not enough to fill those empty bellies, of course, but they were making sure that the other children could at least have a taste of the chocolate.

Deke felt a knot in his throat. Sharing the chocolate that way was something his sister, Sadie, would have done.

“Don’t give it all away,” Lieutenant Steele said. “I hate to say it, boys, but we’ve got to eat too. Besides, there’s a lot more where that came from. Rodeo, bring that radio over here.”

So far the radio had been used for brief reports. But now Steele used it to call in help. The discovery of thousands of people living in a forced labor camp was unexpected, but the chain of command reacted quickly. An airdrop was planned for food, water, and medicine. “If we’re lucky, they’ll get here before dark. Philly, Yoshio, Rodeo, Alphabet, when those planes come in, I want you to keep everyone back until the crates are on the ground. No point in anybody getting squashed. Deke, you get up in what’s left of that Jap guard tower over there and keep an eye out, just in case our friends here are wrong about the Japs being gone.”

“I hope to hell they ain’t. Won’t take much to outnumber us.”

“You see any Japs, you even up the odds for us as best you can.”

“You got it, Honcho.”

Soon they heard the drone of aircraft overhead. They set off some flares to guide them in—even the massive labor camp wasn’t easy to spot from the air, given the cover provided by the jungle canopy. Parachutes drifted down toward the camp. As Steele had predicted, the starving Chamorros wanted to rush the descending crates, but the GIs kept them back. Once the crates were on the ground, they used their bayonets to pry them open. The Chamorros themselves quickly organized distribution of supplies.

But as it turned out, not all the supplies came from the skies. Some of the camp leaders produced a bottle or two of American bourbon that they had somehow kept hidden away from the Japanese. They’d always believed that the Americans would return to help them drink it.

Along with the precious bourbon, it turned out that the Chamorros had hidden away American flags. Some were small and homemade, while larger flags had been secreted away after the Japanese invasion. To be caught with an American flag was certain death at the hands of the Japanese. Now those flags were waved in triumph.

As night came on, the liberated Chamorros insisted on sharing the bourbon with the GIs. Lieutenant Steele wasn’t about to veto the long-overdue celebration. He accepted bourbon in his tin mug and raised it in toast as one of the Chamorros shouted, “America!”

More than a hundred other voices joined in, “America! America!”

That night, feeling a pleasant glow from the bourbon, Deke spread his blanket beside the warm coals of what had been a bonfire. The open sky overhead was a whole lot better than a bat-filled cave in the jungle. The bare ground was comfortable enough once he had scooped out a hole for his hips. Maybe it was foolhardy, but the squad didn’t even post a guard, not when they were surrounded by at least twenty thousand friendly Chamorros. Nearby, Philly and Yoshio were already snoring.

Lieutenant Steele remained awake even after the men had bedded down, staring into the coals and sipping a little bourbon and smoking a final cigarette. He was really just a few years older than the men, but he looked more like a father figure than ever. Deke left the lieutenant to his thoughts and rolled himself in his blanket.

For the first time in weeks, maybe in years, Deke felt at peace. It was good to be out in the open. Yet it was more than the sleeping conditions that lifted Deke’s mood.

Deke thought back to his time at the sawmill, feeling as though that were a thousand years ago. He had hated the sawmill, so different from the fresh air and fields of the mountain farm that he had loved before the bank stole it away. The massive, whirring blade cut timber relentlessly, spitting out rough-sawn boards and scrap wood. Deke still had nightmares that jolted him awake in a cold sweat. At first, the war hadn’t seemed much different from that ruthless saw.